
Happy Hatter Feels Like a Willy Wonka Winner
“I found a Willy Wonka golden ticket in my January issue of Latitude!,” writes Ferris Wills from Berkeley. ‘Picked it up at Richmond Marina, in the Tradewinds office near D dock where I keep my Catalina 320 Argo.”

Ferris is our first Golden Ticket winner for 2025 and is looking forward to receiving his new Latitude 38 hat. In the meantime, he shares a little about his sailing life.
“I caught the sailing bug when my college girlfriend’s father invited us to crew for him back in the mid-’80s, shortly after [I graduated] from UCB. He had a beautiful 52-ft ketch he bought in England and sailed into the Mediterranean. We met him in Rome and sailed to Elba and Corsica.
“A couple of years later, we rejoined the boat and crewed on a longer trip in the Aegean, along the Turkish coast. It was such an amazing experience, I knew I would get back to sailing at some point in my life. But that didn’t happen until much later, after I retired!”
These day’s Ferris sails for fun aboard Argo.
“Argo is a great delight for me,” Ferris writes. “I daysail her often in the Bay with my family, friends and dock buddies. We do an occasional weekend cruise down to Pillar Point or up to Drake’s as well. Would love to do the Ha-Ha, but inertia is powerful 😂”
Ferris’s sails often involve circumnavigating Angel Island and “dropping a lunch anchor in Paradise Cove.”
If you see Ferris and Argo out on the Bay, give them a wave!
You can see more Latitude 38 Golden Ticket winners here.